


Backcast

by JinjoJess



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Birthday Fluff, F/F, OT3, Parenthood, Wife Squad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:34:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27632138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JinjoJess/pseuds/JinjoJess
Summary: Sometimes, you have to go back to go forward.Every year Satomi and her daughter go on a fishing trip to celebrate Satomi's birthday.
Relationships: Dorothea Arnault/Edelgard von Hresvelg, Dorothea Arnault/Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth, Dorothea Arnault/My Unit | Byleth, Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	Backcast

**Author's Note:**

> Since Satomi is not quite the same character as Byleth, she has her own birthday (which, like her name, is also lifted from my Three Houses playthrough) and it is today, Nov. 19th.  
> Happy Birthday, Dog Wife!  
> Because I'm trying to get these things done by a deadline that also happens to be during the week, forgive the fact that they're short and rough.

Despite what the Imperial advisors claimed, Satomi was not a complex woman.

She loved exactly three things:

  1. her wives
  2. her daughter
  3. fishing



And she was skilled in exactly three things:

  1. fighting
  2. fucking
  3. fishing



Satomi did hope that she could add a fourth "f" to her list with "fatherhood", but it wasn't the kind of accolade she could bestow on herself.

She looked across the boat at Heidelinde, who was carefully threading the fishing line through the eye of a hook. Though her limbs were long, thick ropes of muscle wrapped around her skeleton, all Satomi could see for a moment was a small, chubby toddler on her very first fishing trip. Baby Heidelinde had taken a handful of bait and gleefully brought it to her own mouth, giggling as Satomi grabbed her wrist at the last second. 

"Don't tell your moms," she'd said with a smile, poking Heidelinde's little button nose. 

The memory was as clear as the water of the lake--so vivid that for a moment, Satomi wondered if she had once again slipped between the hands of a clock to visit the past.

She blinked, and adult Heidelinde was back, rummaging through a bag to find a roll to stuff in her mouth.

"Wah?" she asked, looking up and meeting Satomi's gaze.

Satomi shook her head. "It's nothing."

Heidelinde committed to the bite, chewing thoughtfully for a moment or two before swallowing. "No, really. What is it, Papa?"

"I'm just thinking about the past."

"Before me?"

"Not quite. A little after you showed up." Satomi fiddled with her own fishing rod. "Your first trip like this."

"Did you used to do this before I was around?"

"Come out here, you mean?"

"Yeah."

"Uh-huh."

Originally, Satomi's birthday meant going fishing with the old man. She remembered Jeralt suddenly wishing her a happy birthday one year, interrupting her while she was practicing a sword strike. He'd responded to her confused surprise with a deep frown, his face creasing around his eyes the way it did whenever he looked at the ring he kept on a chain around his neck. He'd disappeared for a few hours after that, which at the time had been a relief, and had afforded Satomi a chance to go back to her drills. But then he'd appeared again, two long sticks in one hand and thread in the other.

"Let's go fishing," Jeralt had said.

"Why?"

"For your birthday."

"...Why?"

"It's a special day for you. You're eight now. We should celebrate."

"We never did anything before."

Jeralt had grunted, and snapped for her to follow him.

They'd wound through the woods, following the river until the trees parted to reveal a huge lake. Satomi remembered looking at her own reflection, the refracted light from the water making her hair look greenish.

Jeralt had rowed the boat to the center of the lake and then handed Satomi one of the crude fishing poles. It was clear in retrospect that he'd fashioned them himself out of tree branches; normally they'd eaten game like rabbits and deer, and only occasionally caught fish using nets or spears while handling jobs near the seaside.

"What do I do with this?" Satomi had asked, giving the pole an experimental flick.

"Here, you put this on the end." Jeralt had leaned forward to tie a wriggling earthworm to the end of the thread.

"What for?"

"To lure in the fish."

"Oh."

"Alright," Jeralt had said, tugging the thread to ensure the worm wouldn't come loose. "Have at it."

Satomi had stared at him blankly, one hand wrapped around the middle of the pole.

Jeralt had frowned. "Go on."

A few more seconds had passed before he sighed and took Satomi's hand in his own. Just as he'd always done to teach her how to hold a weapon or use it to attack, he'd guided the pole to have her dip the worm into the water.

"There you go."

"Okay. So what now?"

"Well," Jeralt had said, tying a worm to the end of his own line, "now we wait."

"Sounds boring."

He'd shrugged, dipping his bait beneath the surface of the lake water. 

Satomi had worried that he'd try to talk to her about her mother, that she'd have to see his eyes dart around, glistening and wet, avoiding her as if she were the sun.

But he hadn't. Jeralt hadn't said anything, and neither had Satomi. They'd sat for hours on the lake, listening to the water lap at the boat. 

Even now, Satomi could remember how it felt, staring across the water at the tree line. The leaves blood red, mud brown, hay yellow. Brilliant colors, like those of a poisonous animal, she remembered thinking. Poisonous trees. 

As she'd stared, the leaves and their blue-green-tinted reflections had begun to merge, melting into each other like a painter was blending them with a brush.

A strange feeling had settled within her then. It'd been foreign at the time, a bit alarming even, but the shock of the unfamiliarity quickly faded. 

Warmth, relief, calm. Not unlike the sensation of eating when hungry, or pissing when full of drink. The feeling of having an extra blanket draped over the first on a cold winter night.

Eventually, Satomi had gotten a bite, and they'd both realized when they pulled the half-eaten worm from the water that there probably should have been a hook involved.

Though they'd never openly discussed it, Jeralt had noticed the contentment fishing had brought his daughter. During their next trip into a town, he'd purchased proper fishing gear even before meat, cheese, and beer.

For a year or two, fishing became necessary. They'd fished together at any opportunity: before jobs, after jobs, during jobs, between jobs. They'd fished in rivers and lakes and the sea. 

Eventually, Jeralt's duties had once again slipped to the forefront, though Satomi's birthday had always been left open. 

"They say Wyvern Moon is best for fishing," he'd say, passing Satomi the mead bottle as they baited their hooks. "But that's amateur talk. Everyone knows the best fish and the best fishermen are out for the Red Wolf Moon."

The only year Jeralt had been forced to take a job on the 19th day of the Red Wolf Moon had been Satomi's twenty-first birthday.

"I'm so sorry," he'd said, cleaning out his horse's hooves. "Archbishop's running me like a dog here. I need to go check out some reports of strange behavior in villages along the border. I'll make it up to you though. Rhea's _graciously_ agreed to let me take leave at the end of the year, so come Saint Cichol Day, it's just you, me, and the water."

The next time Satomi had fished on her birthday had been after the war.

Back before Heidelinde had been born, Edelgard and Dorothea had come on the annual birthday fishing trip. They'd never complained, and in fact they often had gone out of their way to mention the great fun they were having, but deep down Satomi had known that they preferred to be elsewhere. 

She didn't blame them; coming on the fishing trip with her was their version of her sitting in on policy meetings or going to the opera. They were there because they loved her, and knew that this was important to her. 

But it wasn't the same.

Once Heidelinde was old enough to be taken past the palace gates, Satomi had announced that she was going to use her birthday trip as a way to bond with their daughter. She pointedly ignored the glance of relief Dorothea and Edelgard shared, instead considering it a victory that they were allowing her to take the baby out into the wilderness without supervision. 

They must have really needed time to themselves that year.

Satomi blinked, forcing herself to look at the moment in front of her rather than after the countless ones already downstream.

"Don't tell me you used to come out with Auntie and Mother," Heidelinde said. "I can't even picture that."

"Okay. I won't."

Heidelinde doubled over in laughter, then stood, glancing for the correct direction to drop her line.

"What do you think, Papa? Which direction is tonight's dinner?"

Satomi turned her head to look out over the glassy surface of the lake. 

"It's wily," she said. "Because it's Red Wolf Moon."

Heidelinde nodded, understanding perfectly, despite never having met her grandfather. "Obviously."

"It's smart enough to steer clear of the boat."

"Okay, so what do we do?"

"We'll need some distance to make the bait less suspicious." Satomi chewed her lower lip, then stood. "Let me show you something."

Satomi slid behind Heidelinde, her hand closing over the one holding the pole.

"Ha, this feels a little like when I was small and you were teaching me how to hold a sword," Heidelinde said.

"It's a little different," Satomi said. "Warmer."

"True. I know what you mean."

"Sometimes," Satomi said, drawing the pole back quickly so that the line flung behind them, "you have to go back first."

What would the old man think? Would he like Heidelinde?

"Back first," Heidelinde repeated.

"Because if you do, then..." Satomi brought both their arms forward, as if for a downward sword strike, then added a wrist flick at the last moment. The hook whistled through the crisp air and sailed over the water.

Satomi watched the horizon swallow the lure. She saw distant figures rise from the line where the lake met the sky: three girls, healthy and clever. Some with Heidelinde's (Edelgard's) eyes. Some with Heidelinde's (her own) hair. All with Heidelinde's (Dorothea's) poise and grace.

Of course Jeralt would like Heidelinde. 

It was assured, like Satomi expanding her list of loves to include her own grandchildren.

"Papa, woah!"

"...Then you'll be able to go much farther."

**Author's Note:**

> I realize I limit my own appeal thanks to my love of tragedy and inability to engage with things without adding a bunch of OCs, but thanks to those of you who stick with me regardless.


End file.
